In Conversation with India’s first Woman Sports Journalist -Sharda Ugra

With over two decades of experience under her belt, Sharda Ugra, India’s first ever woman sports journalist, is a dynamic force in sports journalism. For the last few decades, she has worked at the Mid-Day ,The Hindu and was also the Deputy Editor at India Today. She is known for her vibrant storytelling and sharp analysis. Whether she’s dissecting a nail-biting match or exploring the cultural impact of sports, Ugra’s insights are always thought-provoking and engaging. Her passion for the game and ability to connect with audiences make her a standout voice in the industry. While on a visit to Mumbai, taking time out from her packed schedule, Ugra engaged with students of SCM Sophia for an insightful chat.

I would like to ask you, why sports journalism? Was there something that inspired you to embark on this career path?

I was very fond of sports, per se. I was a very bad athlete in the sense I wasn't very good at anything. I ran better timings after I was 40 and I could swim more than I could when I was, you know, in my teens. I grew up in Bhandup, Mumbai where there were sports facilities, there was play area. So I was always able and I had friends to play with my age, slightly older, slightly younger. Because I was fond of sport, I read a lot about it. I watched the nascent black and white television to start with for about, maybe five years or so. I would watch events and so I would follow sport very obsessively. My father was a competitive athlete in his university and his interest in sport took mine along with him, and that is where it began for him. I didn't think I would get an opportunity to be a journalist, but I wanted to be a journalist because that seemed to be the only skill available to anyone who did a BA in humanities and didn't want to study further and become an IAS or teacher or academician. So that seemed that and advertising seemed to be the big balance that you had to play, had to make. And I wanted to go into journalism. I didn't think I'd get a chance to go into sports journalism. But I did.

So it has been a long time since you've been in this industry. 1989. That's when you began if I'm not wrong. So how big of a difference do you see in the number of sports journalists, especially women, from 1989 to 2024?

In 1989 when I went into press boxes in the country, in Mumbai I was the only female in that space. Now if you go, you will find women in a press box, almost in every press box, everywhere. There won't be a large number, but they won't be invisible. I hope not. I haven't gone to the press box for a few years now. But the size and the scale of the women who are working in sports journalism has increased. And its increase in India is much more than it is in other countries. So I did a general audit around 2018 or something like that? I just said, let me find how many women out there in Sports Journalism and let me just ask people, who do you know in sports journalism, send me their email addresses? I asked a person from the Sports Journalists Federation of India, how many women journalists do you think there are? He said oh about 25. I said okay, better than zero or one or two or whatever. we were in the nineties when we started out. So I sent this list out and I said, not people, not only women in television, or in the audiovisual media, but just in the business of words, in writing, editing, being on copy desk and how many women are there. The answer came back 62 or 65, a rather big number I was very happy. That's the change that there is, that you will see women on sports desks, for example. They’d be very good at working in copy. You will see them in reporting, you will see them in writing and you will see them even as entrepreneurs. You know, there's a sports website called ‘The Bridge’, which is run by a young woman, she has a team of about 20 people, it’s mad, I don't know whether this has translated itself into regional languages, into other languages outside of English. So I know Bengali will have a few, I know Hindi has a couple working on the desk, but I don't know whether there is a larger mass in other languages.

As a reporter and as a woman reporter especially, was there a moment where you felt like you were not taken seriously by the men in the industry, not just the athletes, but other people in authority?

I think the people in authority and the athletes were the least of the problems. Once you once you started working, they looked at you very oddly to begin with because you were just a strange creature to be in that space. Since I was working for Mid-day which is a city paper what I wrote would appear in print the next day and they could see it was readable. They said, ‘All right, this person is working the way the other persons are working.’ So that was simpler though, not to be taken seriously or to be looked down upon in a way that happened more by my professional colleagues. I don't think anyone said anything to

me on my face, but people didn't talk to you, they kind of pretend you're not there, they did all that. The work atmosphere at Mid-day was fabulous. they had a woman who headed the city news desk, there were two women who were in-charge of the desks, the various shifts that were there, their features editor was a woman. The main crime reporter was a woman. So there were a lot of women in that space, me, as a sports reporter, was also part of this whole gang. And they were very, very supportive. It's like they were your team. So you never felt alone in the industry because you went back to the office where you were, you know, one of all your colleagues at Mid-day. They had a, very good management team. Mr. Khalid Ansari’s sons Tarik and Sharik Ansari had taken over the paper so you had young people around, it was a very, very good and very healthy atmosphere. They hired two more women sports reporters at the same time. Everyone talked about us and all that but it was a very good atmosphere to grow up in. So I really didn't really feel, now when I to look back at it I realize the atmosphere in Mid-day was so rewarding and it was so supportive and, and you know, it was the opposite of what is our toxic atmosphere that it was just, it did a lot for my confidence and it did a lot for, I mean, I was still a bit nervous and a bit sort of trying to prove myself kind of a thing. And I'm a serious person. I’ve not come here to marry cricketers, you know, that kind of, thing. But, that made a big difference. So I didn't really have too many problems, other than with other journalists. I'm like, listen it's been 35 years. I'm still around, you know, I'm not going anywhere. I’ll still walk into a press box if I want to walk into a press box.

The BCCI had in 2022 announced equal pay for both men and women cricketers. Yeah. So what are your thoughts on a do you think disparity in terms of opportunities or be in the sports industry still exist?

Oh massively, I think a disparity, in opportunity still exists. It exists not just in India, but also in supposedly westernized developed countries as well. It was I think Paula Radcliffe who said that when she won a race, a boy got a cycle and she got a kettle or something like that, even though they both won. So that still happens, there is a greater awareness about it and it's changed. The thing about the match fees if you notice, its a great move and another word that you used is opportunities. The opportunities are what in shortage. Now, what happens if you are paying. The BCCI is not at all an organizations short of money, but they will not offer the female cricketers the same contracts. It's a contract where the difference is. What is on your contract is like your employment deal with your employer, which is if you are a cricketer, the BCCI is your employer, they look after you. They give you X amount of money every year for being on their payroll almost. If you have a injury, they will look after you. They will pay for surgery whatever. The contract is where the difference is. The match fees are fine. So the men will say we’ll give you so many. You get ‘x’ amount for matches. Men will play 12 test matches or 31 internationals. The women will play two test matches and 18 internationals. You know so you have to be aware of that number or be happy that there is equal match fees but we were not first to do so, I think New Zealand was first. And the contracts are not equal at all, but we know where that comes from.

Media has often objectified women athletes and there is a certain body image perception that they've put out. But today in the world of social media with larger coverage and I think more people watching sports, do you think any kind of change in that perception that has been put out earlier has now happened? Any positive or negative change?

You know what happened to Manu Bhaker when she came out and someone asked her, “You are such a pretty athlete” some TV interview came out like that. So this is a young man asking her, asking a double Olympic world champion, a ridiculous question like this. This is not some uncle who was born in 1945 who has asked the question. This is some person born in post-liberalization India saying this. And so, of-course, there is that pressure on there always the objectification of women, the younger generation is far more confident than the people in my generation or a couple of generations after me were. So I think that

there is still that. But the good thing is that the visibility of the female athlete has increased and you are able to see a vast range of body types that there are because you cannot be a Deepa Karmakar, a gymnast that body type, which is small but strong and also be a wrestler in heavyweight weight women’s wrestling. So that understanding is there how society looks at it outside of it's okay that they're doing this but outside what are they like. I think that there are clichés around how women's sport is played and organized and it became Bharat Ki Beti and they tell stories, not just of women but also of the men, of their lives and the backgrounds and where they come from. They don't talk about their ability as athletes, at least that's not talked about enough. So there there's a class element that comes in to how sport is covered as well, so there are a lot of things that are there. But its good to see more women competing in more range of sports and to see them out there. The clothes our women wear these days is different to what the athletes wore previously. There's a certain body confidence that has come into the Indian athlete, male and female. It's good to see that also. But yeah, long, long way to go.

In the past you've mentioned that TV channels used to get attacked by being told “You're hiring girls because you want to charm the cricketers and get their interviews”

This was a perception back in the day, right.

Right. Do you think the organizations today who are genuinely hiring women for their skills are still perceived in the same manner?

I mean, a lot of women are hired for this, right? So certainly in television, in sports television , in cricket television, there is a need to have a female presenter of a kind, see in the way Star Sports covers an event or somebody else covers an event, whoever the female presenter is, will be dressed in an outfit that is completely not work related looking because the whole

marketing line behind this is that “Oh we’re trying to get women and children to watch cricket.” I think lots of women are going to watch cricket even if the female presenter wore some normal looking kind of clothes. You see them wearing heels in a field, so there is certainly that element that's there. I mean, I have to try and investigate this and find out that there is in the industry, a lot of pressure on the women that come in, particularly on camera, to look a particular way to present themselves in a particular way. I have heard really offensive sexist comments made to women when it came to hiring. I don't know how many technical staff are female. The camera staff and so on. What is important and what is good is that you've had women's voices coming out as commentators. That has changed a lot You know, that has changed in a crazy percentage from over the last time. I’m trying to think maybe from the 2015 cricket world, basically cricket World Cup, that that has certainly changed. In the Olympic coverage you’ll see a lot of women athletes that are there. But cricket is are clearly sexist in some ways when it comes to how women are presented on television, even if they're doing this job of being just a presenter. You know, bizarre clothes and (laughing)

I was reading a research paper and it was Women in Sport, and they mentioned that about 46% of the girls drop out of sports, even though they have been actively playing and they've made it to a certain level, but they drop out after school or they don't continue with sports.

Do you think there's any particular reason this happens or is that a way that it could be prevented?

You know, they drop out for reasons like how girls drop out from sport per say after puberty. You know that, okay, now you have to study, you have to get married. So the woman athlete will continue, but then the transition opportunities for her are very very minimal, As coaches, as people in the industry in some other way, you know. So I think the agency that the female athlete has, is, is inadequate. You know, even in administration, they will not allow women administrators to come to run the sport. When Sakshi Malik and Vinesh Phogat, protested, Sakshi Malik said in an interview on the Sports Alliance Network, she said "They don't even have women in their entire, organizing managing committee. There are no women administrators. How will they understand? Who will women go to complain to"? So that's why they kind of turn away. There's a very moving photograph of the former India hockey captain, Rani Rampal, of the women's team in Shahbad, the town where a lot of the women hockey players come from with about five or six former captains themselves. Medal winners, Asian Games medalists, all of them with their babies, you know, look very sweet and very nice. And these are the former captains have come to sort of greet Rani. And what you're seeing that, you know, this is so much of on field experience that has just retreated into the home. So transition opportunities are important. Hopefully the numbers will go up. I mean, the case of the Wrestlers protest is just everything that's wrong about women's sport in India.

You also have been a mentor with ICC at one point, how important do you think the role of

mentorship is in supporting young women while entering sports journalism? So the ICC role was of a particular type. You are talking to women that are in cricket in other countries.

There was someone from Nigeria or somebody from Brazil. There's a girl from Afghanistan who I had spoken to who when the Taliban overran the government of Afghanistan, again, she actually led her team out of the country. Helped them escape Incredible, incredible girl. So that's the kind of work that I did with them. What a lot of the women on that panel seem to say is that they just need to see more of us there, in these various roles. You know, there's a friend of mine who's in sports administration. She said she used to walk into a cricket board room and she said that all I saw around me were incompetent men. I'm not being anti-men or anything but sports administrators do not really come into that because of great capabilities. They come into it because of political wrangling, moving, owning clubs, whatever, history, heritage, whatever, whatever. And she would have had to fight her way and bust through all kinds of jobs to get to where she is and she says “All I see around me are these people” So the thing about mentorship, which is what your question was, its very important and I am happy to reach out and talk to anybody who does want to talk to me and say, this is what what am I going through? What should I do? I'm trying to tell them listen you have to be very careful about how many fights you get into. And every story that you write, doesn’t have to win the Pulitzer Prize. Be very strategic, equal to your career if you really love sports journalism and you want to do it. So I'm very happy to do that. I think it's very important. I think they need to see and hear and be able to connect. And because of social media, because of the internet, people are able to reach out to others as well. And there's a great community of women in sports that are out there, particularly in Commentary and Cricket. You have a lot of that in sports journalism. Everyone says that there should be a network created of women's sports journalists, which is complicated, but there is a network of women journalists that exists. It's a network, it’s not an organization, it doesn't have elections, it's non-hierarchical, it's under the radar. It has a lot of members and they all work. and so that's what women journalists in sports or any other field need to have.

What do you think about the future of women in sports journalism? What do you envision in terms of its evolution?

I think its great. I think because there will be more girls coming through to be journalists, not necessarily only in writing or text, but in the video, through social media, through all kinds of other, you know, data science or whatever. I think that you can't stop it. It's like the ball has started rolling and it's only going to get bigger. India has a lot of opportunities and has given that a lot of opportunities. I mean, it's not like there are a lot of women make opportunities for themselves and their fields and they find a way to get there because there is precedent, there are people that have gone before and the people that are still there.

So you can't turn the clock , like I said we're not going anywhere, we’re still here. (she smiles)

You can get upset by it, Its not a lads club anymore, but we're not going anywhere.

Lastly, what advice would you like to give to someone who is looking to venture into this field? Maybe a little trick of the trade or something

For women or men? (laughs)

Both, but maybe towards women in particular?

I think for women in particular Don't try and be one of the boys, because you’ll always be a minority, but don’t try and be one of the boys. Be yourself and your work will speak for itself. Do your work and meet as many people as you can meet. Build your friends everywhere, have friends outside the industry because your friends may not come from within the industry, but don’t try and be one of the boys.